M’KERLIE,
the surname of an ancient family, originally of rank in Ireland, and
settled for many centuries in Wigtownshire, where they held
extensive estates. Their early history was in the possession of the
monks of Crossraguel, Carrick, and lost when that monastery was
destroyed. A Father Stewart, one of the monks in the 16th
century, who left some writings, states, “the next great family are
the Kerlies of Cruggleton, who being brave warriors stood boldly up
for the independence of their country under Wallace, and it was one
of their forefathers who, at a place called Dunmoir in Carrick, was
particularly instrumental in giving the Danes a notable overthrow.
He took Eric the son of Swain prisoner, for which service the king
gave him lands in Carrick.” They took part in the Crusades, to which
their armorial bearings, borne for centuries, specially refer, and
sever traditions of adventurous exploits have been handed down. The
loss of their early history can never be replaced. As corroborated
by Felix O’Carroll, in his Translation of the chronicles of Tara,
and History of the Sennachies, it is that the first Carroll
(afterwards changed to Kerlie) who came from Ireland was a petty
king or chief in that country. Fleeing to Scotland, he was
hospitably received by the king, and had lands assigned to him in
Galloway, where he lived in great splendour. Henry the minstrel, the
biographer of Wallace about 1470, also states with reference to
William Carroll or Kerlie, the compatriot of Wallace (with whom the
change in the name is believed to have first occurred), that his
ancestor accompanied David I. from Ireland, and having at Dunmoir in
Carrick, with 700 Scots, defeated 9,000 Danes, had lands in Carrick,
then a part of Galloway, now of Ayrshire, given to him for that
service. Henry, however, is wrong as to the period, which is
believed to have been either in the 9th or 10th
century, when the Cruithne passed over to Galloway from Ireland.

Carroll was the original name, in Ireland O’Carroll, of which
once powerful family more than one branch were petty kings or chiefs
over different districts in the north of that country, even
extending so far south as Meath, where were the hall and Court of
Tara, as also Eile or Ely, now called King’s County, the chief of
all being the arch king of Argiall. Since then (a peculiarity common
with Galloway surnames) the name has been variously spelled at
different periods, as Kerlé, Kerlie, M’Carole, M’Carlie, and
M’Kerlie.

The castle and lands of Carleton in Carrick, (now owned by the
Cathearts under a charter dated 1324) was the first property
possessed by the family in Galloway, originally called Carolton, the
residence of Carroll. It is mentioned as a tradition in Ayrshire
that Carleton Castle, in remote times, previous to the arrival of
the Cathearts in Carrick, belonged to a family of the name of De
Kiersly, evidently a corruption of Kerlie. They afterwards obtained
the castle and lands of Cruggleton, &c. This castle (the Black Rock
of Cree) was built by the Danes about 1098, on the highest summit of
a range of precipices about 200 feet high, overhanging the sea, at
the mouth of Wigtown Bay. It was considered impregnable, being on a
small promontory which juts into the sea; and landward defended with
strong battlemented walls, with a fosse between them, 42 feet wide
and 16 feet deep, over which was a drawbridge with gates,
portcullis, &c. The area within the walls contained an acre and a
quarter. The castle was ruinous before the year 1684. It is an
interesting, though very greatly dilapidated ruin. Part of an
unornamented arch, and the lower parts of some walls, alone remain
to attest its ancient spaciousness and strength.

Chalmers, in his Caledonia, has some extraordinary
errors in regard to Cruggleton. At the time he wrote, any peasant in
the neighbourhood could have told him who the ancient owners were,
but apparently without troubling himself with much inquiry, he seems
at once to have concluded that this castle must have belonged to the
lords of Galloway, and that John Comyn the elder inherited it
through his mother, from finding, in Dugdale’s Baronage, mention of
his name in connection with it; in the extract of which short
passage he omits Galway castle (the royal castle of Wigtown) to
adapt it to his ideas. As an antiquarian Chalmers ought to have
known that the castles of the lords of Galloway were in Central
Galloway, the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, and not in Western
Galloway.

From 1282 the vicissitudes attending the possession of this
castle were many, furnishing a striking example of the insecurity of
property in this distracted district of Scotland, where charters
were unknown until the 14th century, the ancient Celtic
proprietors having held their lands under their own Celtic laws. In
1282, Wm. Kerlie had as his guest Lord Soulis, (a secret adherent of
Edward I.,) who took the castle by treachery. Kerlie escaped and in
several ineffectual attempts to retake it, lost his remaining
followers. In 1292, John Comyn, earl of Buchan, had temporary
possession, as also of the royal castle of Wigtown. In 1296, Edward
I. appointed Henry Percy, governor of it and other castles, and in
1297, Percy was succeeded by John of Hoddleston. In 1296, Wm.
Kerlie, the real owner, was one of the first to join Sir Wm. Wallace
at the castle of the earl of Lennox, and from that date was his
constant friend and companion in arms, in the noble and desperate
struggle for liberty.

In 1297, Wallace went to Galloway, and under Kerlie’s
guidance, Cruggleton castle, by a daring scheme, was retaken by
surprise, and the garrison of 60 men slain, a priest and two women
only having been spared. Kerlie was then restored to his patrimonial
property. He however did not leave Wallace, and all the fatal battle
of Falkirk in 1298, he is traditionally said to have appeared at the
head of 500 men, most of whom were slain in an ineffectual attempt
to rescue Sir John the Graeme. This patriot’s career was closed at
Robrastoun near Glasgow in July 1305, when he accompanied Wallace
there, to await a meeting with Robert the Bruce, and were basely
betrayed into the hands of their enemies. While both were asleep
their arms were secretly removed, Kerlie slain, and the noble
Wallace reserved for a worse fate.

Wm. Kerlie was one of the few who never swore fealty to Edward
the Usurper. He left an infant son, also called William, born in
1298, and therefore 7 years of age at his father’s death. This boy
was treacherously dealt with by the prior and monks of the monastery
of “Candida Casa,” Whithorn, near Cruggleton, who in 1309 concealed
from Robert the Bruce that he existed, and was owner of the castle
and lands, but represented that they had belonged to Lord Soulis,
all of whose property had been directed to be sequestrated, and by
this means obtained a charter of them for the monastery. Again in
the disturbed reign of David II., when properties were so freely
disposed of to his own supporters, Gilbert Kennedy (an ancestor of
the Ailsa family), who had been one of his hostages in England,
obtained in 1366, a charter of the castle and lands, but it was
never put in force, and in 1423 the prior and monks of “Candida
Casa” got it cancelled. By the charter of 1309, the superiority was
wrested by “Candida Casa” from young Kerlie and his descendants, but
this was unknown to them for generations, as the family were never
disturbed in their proprietory rights by the monastery. They
retained possession until about the end of the 16th
century, when the Reformation broke up the ancient tenures, and as
the family held under the Celtic laws without a Crown charter, with
the ruin of the church, they lost the castle and lands.

The last of the family, from father to son, who possessed the
castle and lands, was John, who in the “Inquisitiones de Tutela,”
under date 20th June 1583, is called therein M’Carole.

His descendant, in direct line, was John M’Carlie or M’
Kerlie, born in 1704, and died in 1796, aged 92. His mother was
daughter of William Baillie of Dunragget, the first of which family,
now extinct, was Cuthbert, Commendator of Glenluce Abbey, of the
family of Baillie of Lamington, said to be the descendants of the
patriot Wallace’s only child, heiress of Lamington. He was sometime
lord high treasurer of Scotland, and died in 1514.

John M’Kerlie possessed considerable property in the vicinity
of Wigtown, part of which remained to his family until 1834. He was
twice married, first to Nicholas M’Keand, of an old Galloway family,
and had issue, all of whom are extinct. In 1694, Alexander Stewart
of Tonderghie, a cadet of the Galloway family, married Janet,
daughter of Hugh M’Guffock or M’Gudfog of Rusco Castle, a very
ancient and once powerful Galloway family, for a short account of
which see the SUPPLEMENT to this work. James M’Guffock, of the same
family, married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Tonderghie, and their
eldest daughter Agnes became the second wife of John M’Kerlie. She
died in 1822, aged 82. By her he had a son and daughter who died in
infancy; also two other sons, Robert and John Graham.

Robert, born November 11, 1778, entered the army in 1794, and
served with his regiment throughout the rebellion in Ireland. In
1798 he became captain, and retired in 1804, having been appointed
principal ordnance storekeeper in Scotland, an office which he
retained for many years. He died Dec. 13, 1855. John Graham, born in
1781, as a young officer served in the army in the Peninsula, and
was under Sir John Moore at Corunna. He died in 1816. Robert
M’Kerlie, the last representative, by his marriage with Marion,
daughter of Peter Handyside, Esq., Greenhall, (uncle of the eminent
judge, Lord Handyside) left, with three daughters, three sons. 1.
Charles William Montagu Scott, of the East India company’s maritime
service, author of a Narrative of the loss of the East India
Company’s ship, Duke of York, in which he was one of the officers.
Edinb. 1834. 2. John Graham, colonel royal engineers, and a
commissioner of public works, Ireland, author of the Report, dated
11th May, 1846, on musket firing, &c. from experiments
carried on by him at Chatham, and on which the new rifle was
introduced, and the School of Musketry at Hythe instituted, with Sir
John Burgoyne’s Notes on it attached; printed by Government. 3.
Peter Handyside, admiralty, London, author of a pamphlet, entitled
“Statistics of the Composition of the Scottish regiments to 1861,”
compiled from the regimental records. The arms of the family are, az:
a chief arg: and a fret ga. Since quartered with the M’Guffog and
Stewart arms – The Crest, which refers to a knight of the family
engaged in the Crusades, is, the sun, or, shining on a cross
crosslet fitchée, sa. placed on the dexter side of a mount, vert,
with the motto, “In hoc Signo Vinces.”

Although at one time the name was numerous in Galloway, in
1825 there were only three families who bore it, viz., the then
representative Capt. R. M’Kerlie, Rear-admiral John M’Kerlie, and
Alexander M’Kerlie, whose family is now merged into and represented
by Sir John M’Taggart, bart. of Ardwell. – Rear-admiral John
M’Kerlie served with Sir Edward Pellew (afterwards Lord Exmouth) in
all his brilliant frigate actions, in one of which he lost an arm,
and was at Trafalgar, &c. He left an only daughter by his marriage
with Harriet, daughter of the late James Stewart of Cairnsmuir –
also a nephew John M’Kerlie.

Originating in the Perth edition of Henry’s “Wallace,”
published in 1796, and followed by subsequent writers, the names Ker
and Kier have been confused with that of Kerlie, which are quite
distinct, and so shown in all the ancient editions of the patriot’s
life, commencing with Lekprevik’s in 1570, and also the MS. of 1488.
– The names Ker and Kier were unknown in Galloway, are of a
different origin entirely, and only found in other parts of
Scotland, several Kers having sworn fealty to Edward I.

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